Cashel Byron's Profession

"I find the contrary to be the case with first-rate artists," said

Lydia.

"Thank you," retorted Cashel, sarcastically. "I ought to make you a

bow for that. I'm glad you acknowledge that it IS an art."

"But," said Lydia seriously, "it seems to me that it is an art

wholly anti-social and retrograde. And I fear that you have forced

this interview on me to no purpose."

"I don't know whether it's anti-social or not. But I think it hard

that I should be put out of decent society when fellows that do far

worse than I are let in. Who did I see here last Friday, the most

honored of your guests? Why, that Frenchman with the gold

spectacles. What do you think I was told when I asked what HIS

little game was? Baking dogs in ovens to see how long a dog could

live red hot! I'd like to catch him doing it to a dog of mine. Ay;

and sticking a rat full of nails to see how much pain a rat could

stand. Why, it's just sickening. Do you think I'd have shaken hands

with that chap? If he hadn't been a guest of yours I'd have given

him a notion of how much pain a Frenchman can stand without any

nails in him. And HE'S to be received and made much of, while I am

kicked out! Look at your relation, the general. What is he but a

fighting man, I should like to know? Isn't it his pride and boast

that as long as he is paid so much a day he'll ask no questions

whether a war is fair or unfair, but just walk out and put thousands

of men in the best way to kill and be killed?--keeping well behind

them himself all the time, mind you. Last year he was up to his chin

in the blood of a lot of poor blacks that were no more a match for

his armed men than a feather-weight would be for me. Bad as I am, I

wouldn't attack a feather-weight, or stand by and see another heavy

man do it. Plenty of your friends go pigeon-shooting to Hurlingham.

THERE'S a humane and manly way of spending a Saturday afternoon!

Lord Worthington, that comes to see you when he likes, though he's

too much of a man or too little of a shot to kill pigeons, thinks

nothing of fox-hunting. Do you think foxes like to be hunted, or

that the people that hunt them have such fine feelings that they can

afford to call prize-fighters names? Look at the men that get killed

or lamed every year at steeple-chasing, fox-hunting, cricket, and

foot-ball! Dozens of them! Look at the thousands killed in battle!

Did you ever hear of any one being killed in the ring? Why, from

first to last, during the whole century that prize-fighting has been

going on, there's not been six fatal accidents at really respectable

fights. It's safer than dancing; many a woman has danced her skirt

into the fire and been burned. I once fought a man who had spoiled

his constitution with bad living; and he exhausted himself so by

going on and on long after he was beaten that he died of it, and

nearly finished me, too. If you'd heard the fuss that even the

oldest fighting men made over it you'd have thought that a baby had

died from falling out of its cradle. A good milling does a man more

good than harm. And if all these--dog-bakers, and soldiers, and

pigeon-shooters, and fox-hunters, and the rest of them--are made

welcome here, why am I shut out like a brute beast?"